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My New Year’s resolution is to provide better picks. I don’t expect them to pan out, just like some of my resolutions of years past, such as:

–lose weight

–exercise more

–write more

–complain less

–be a better husband/father/son/friend/professional

In the end, I’ve wound up being the same person year after year despite the empty promises I’ve made to myself. I expect the promise about better picks against the spread to also be an empty one. Without further ado…

My advice would be to see who I’ve picked, and go with the opposite team. I haven’t been on the money in a while, and I certainly wouldn’t want anyone out there losing cash they probably need to use on presents this holiday season. Without further ado, here are my selections for this week.

There are many storylines to follow as the season winds down. Will the Saints and Colts both finish undefeated? Can the Steelers overcome their recent losing streak, catch a few breaks, and reach the playoffs? Will Chris Johnson reach the 2,000-yard plateau? Who will emerge as the league’s MVP in what promises to be a tight race?

If you’re a faithful reader you already know this, but all picks are for entertainment purposes only. As evidenced by my run of losing weeks lately, if you’re betting with me, you’re not going to do well financially.

Hoping to mitigate the damage caused by the Steelers’ loss to the Cleveland Browns on Thursday night, here’s the remainder of my week 14 picks against the spread:

As the season winds down, unpredictability seems to be on the rise in the NFL.

As a result, it was another losing week for me, as the picks were 7-9 against the spread, bringing my overall record to 104-88 on the season. While the record is still far above .500, it’s been a few weeks since I’ve had 10 or more correct picks.

What follows is a review of the week 13 games, along with my pick for the Thursday night game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cleveland Browns.

This week, the Ledger will focus solely on the Sunday and Monday games. As published earlier, I went 2-1 on Thanksgiving, and there’s no sense in re-hashing the events of games that are nearly a week-old at this point.

As it turned out, the best part of the long weekend was Thursday, both from a food and a football standpoint. The highlight of my week was watching the Broncos dismantle the New York Giants while eating some apple pie. In terms of picks, it was all downhill from there. Between Sunday and Monday night, I went 4-9, running my season record to 97-79.

While I like the symmetry of the overall record, I don’t like posting an ugly week with the selections. Here’s the rundown of where I (mostly) went wrong:

Off to a solid 2-1 start for week 12, thanks to the Packers and Broncos, I’m hoping to see that success continue into the rest of the weekend. It’s been a while since I’ve scored a big week I must admit. Following an 8-8 week 11 showing, and the 2-1 start to this week, my record on the season is now 93-70, which isn’t bad. However, after starting off hot, I’ve essentially been a 50-50 bettor in the last month or so.

For those who might be interested, here’s my picks for Thursday’s games:

Less than 24 hours away from a day devoted to family, feasting, and football, here’s how tomorrow’s games are shaping up, from my point of view. Home teams are in bold, as always.

Green Bay (-11) over Detroit

After the way they came from behind against the Browns last week, I wanted to pick the Lions to at least cover. Between the fact that I hate picking against double-digit home underdogs, and my suspicion that the Packers aren’t really as good as their record indicates, I was ready to go with the Lions.

However, the Lions could be without Matthew Stafford and Calvin Johnson, two of their young stars-in-the-making on offense. And, in all honesty, the Packers should have little trouble moving the ball and scoring a lot of points on the Lions’ defense.

I’m hopeful of seeing the competitive portion of this game before settling down before a sizeable helping of the traditional Thanksgiving fare. In other words, I don’t plan on watching after halftime.

Packers 35, Lions 17

Oakland (+13.5) over Dallas

After upending the Bengals behind Bruce Gradkowski last week, the Raiders have the look of a frisky team instead of an inept one. It will be interesting to see how Oakland follows that performance up. A few weeks ago, I’d have assumed they would have mailed this game in.

I still envision the Cowboys winning, and probably by double digits, but I expect the Raiders to make it entertaining enough to watch while eating a turkey sandwich or a piece of pie after the feast is over.

Cowboys 27, Raiders 18

Denver (+6.5) over NY Giants

I realize the Broncos have lost four in a row, but these Giants just recovered from their own four-game losing streak on Sunday with a nail-biting 34-31 win over Atlanta, a team that has struggled mightily as well. The Giants have some injury issues, the biggest perhaps being the loss of Ahmad Bradshaw for this game. Without him, the Giants will rely on Brandon Jacobs to run the football, and he hasn’t been effective all season.

This game makes or breaks Denver’s season, perhaps. A win puts them at 7-4 going into a mini-bye week, before road games at Kansas City and Indianapolis. A loss on Thanksgiving continues their tailspin, increases the scrutiny on them, and perhaps increases any clubhouse tension that could be building.

It’s hard to be impartial here. I am a Broncos fan and I want them to win this game. The optimist in me thinks the Giants will struggle away from home following a hard-fought win and they’ll wear down late due to the thin air and the short preparation week, leading to a Denver win.

I’ll take the glass-is-half-full approach and hopefully wash down my optimism with a Sam Adams Winter Lager as Denver pulls away late. I’d certainly be thankful of that.

It’s been a crazy week for me. The time needed to write 4,000 words a week on football didn’t exist, unfortunately. I hope to make it up in the days leading up to Thanksgiving, with the three games on Turkey Day.

After going 9-6 in week 10, I picked incorrectly on Thursday, as seen here: